Imaginary Actuality and Actuality of Imagination
by K.Henderson
Summary: Dying and gazing into eyes similar to Lily's of his life Snape is taken into another world, one he only believed existed in his nightmares. In that place he is given a second chance to regain the lost love. Continued in "The Marauders and Me!" COMING SOON


_**The Imaginary Actuality and The Actuality of Imagination.**_

_**Disclaimer: I dun own anything…yadda yadda yadda…**_

_**Read Review and Comment on what you like don't flame me please. I ask this because I really don't want flames ok. I don't know where this came from all I know is that Key Animation is burning my brain and I love it. I always imagined what would happen if Snape got a second chance. I imagined him saying the things he couldn't say and I actually imagined everyone else realizing the change too…but well I wont spoil it. Read on please!**_

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It's dark. I always imagined there would be hell fire when I died not this calming darkness where all I can see are those glittering green eyes. The boy's eyes are staring into mine and all I can think of is his mother.

"…Lily's eyes…"

My voice is coming from far away shocking me with the definite denotation of it. The meaning behind my croaking voice and the darkness clouding everything but this boy's eyes and the memories bubbling to the surface of my mind. Lily. It was always Lily-that wonderful flower and then I remember a dream. That significant life turning dream from long ago that seems to be surfacing now. For you see, I am there, in that place where there is nothing.

My world of nothing.

When I open my eyes, I am not certain when they closed, I see Lily's boy sitting beneath a barren tree and beside him a girl with glittering dark tresses and a pale coloring to her skin. Her face is lovely and her eyes are like Lily's son; glittering green, fathomless and pure. Pure like Lily-that flower that had died out so very long ago.

_'Are you ready?'_ The boy says and it is then that I notice he is a little over five and he appears lovely too, angelic and feral all at the same time, a priceless treasure that I am almost blinded to see for the very first time. The girl at his side is silent and dully stares at me in question before shutting her eyes and laying her head in the boys lap. Her white dress is frayed at the bottom where it barely reaches her ankles and her fingernails are dirty.

_'Ready?'_

_'You've been asleep for a very long time. She says that she wants you to wake up and to go home.'_ Little Harry says with a hidden meaning in his eyes. He looks at the girl who is motionless and pale and doll like with a warm smile. _'It's time to go home now.'_

_'Don't you think you should explain to this old man what is going on? Is this purgatory or some other realm-a waiting area for the dead to realize where they are condemned?'_

He tilts his head slightly in question-something his father had the habit of doing when he was often confused. _'You're an old man? But you aren't old. Well not too old you're at least eleven right?'_

I hadn't noticed before but now I could feel it. My body was slighter and my voice was higher pitched. I stared at the palms of my hands which were smooth and unmarred with the hard life that I had been previously living. Even my clothing was different-I was in a school uniform. _'What is this magic? I was an old man before I died. Where is this place?'_

_'This place you say? This place…this place is the in between, the darkness in the light you see. Some people call it heaven and others call it hell. It was once Mt. Olympus and home to the gods and connected to so many other tales of lore and dreams and fantasy, oh but that isn't so important now.'_

The girl stirred slightly and Little Harry's attention then turned towards the bare branches of the pathetic tree in which he sat under looking dumbly at them with an awkward sort of longing in his eyes. I imagined that he was picturing how the flowers must have looked when they bloomed on those branches so long ago.

_'It's time for you to go and you ask the wrong questions. Can't you hear it calling you?'_ The girl whispered still lying motionless and if not for the movements of her lips would still appear sleeping. _'There are many people waiting for you to go back, you're waiting for you to go back too. It's a wonder why you haven't felt it in your nightmare world. After all, Harry and I could hear it all of the time the cries and screams and pleading for you to return back to the light._

_'It was like a dream of no awakening for us and look at what you have done. There are to leaves no flowers no life in this barren landscape of your nothing world and we have been in waiting for you to come back.'_

_'You mean to say that I am not dead but merely sleeping. Is that to say, when I return home that Lily will be alive and all this would have been a nightmare?'_

She didn't answer, Little Harry didn't answer only the blinding lights from above and the harsh winds answered. The colors blended together and I still saw those two children dressed in white and suddenly Little Harry was seventeen and smiling and his eyes closed in a sort of resignation and the girl's eyes opened and shimmered and she mouthed something to me before the world turned white then black again.

"It was nice to meet you…_Daddy_."

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When my eyes opened it was to see the shapeless shadows of trees casted by the bright rays of the sun above in the cloudless sky. There was a humming in my ears and warmth in my fingertips. I was still a boy.

There was laughing and as I turned my head I saw a group of young familiar boys, the ghosts of my once past were in their small group sharing a joke together. One f the boys nodded in my direction, a solemn hello and I recognized the resignation there automatically thinking of the child from that nothing world. His son.

Did he know?

The humming returned again only this time I was sure I wasn't imagining it. It was sweet and rich and I remembered it. James Potter nodded again only, in the direction of the humming and smiled-he knew he had to have known.

"What are you waiting for _Snivillus_?" He said and the other boys stopped in their movements, all smiling warmly but distantly. "It's _your_ turn."

"Yeah. What are you doing just _standing_ there?" Sirius Black gruffly spoke annoyance there in his stance but a quiet humor in his eyes. From his side Remus Lupin nodded.

"Set it _right_."

There she was, her hair swaying and catching the suns rays like fire each strand its own unique flame just how I had remembered it from so long ago a time that never was-not in this reality. I wondered if it was my heaven.

"Lily."

My feet carried me towards her, my heart pounding loudly into my own ears, my eyes stinging in complete _fascination_. In complete _awe_ and in…what I was afraid to even imagine…_love_.

"Lily!"

She stopped in her humming and turned towards me with a warm smile on her lips and I embraced her almost knocking her off her feet but I held fast. She was in my arms, warm and alive and her fragrant scent filled my nostrils and then she began to speak.

"I was _afraid_ that you'd never come you know." She laughed. "I was even more afraid that you would let this pass you by-I don't want to repeat the mistakes we made back then."

"Lily."

"I'm so glad you're here."

"So you know it too."

"Well we all do but the memory is fading fast Severus." She laughed lightly. "We can't remember what we aren't meant to know, what never happened."

She pulled away and stared up at me with her eyes, those eyes I had always loved and cupped my face in her small warm hands; in the palms of her tiny hands.

"It's time we start _living_ for real."

"I suppose you're right." I said then held her to me again in a tight embrace. "Thank you …Lily."

Time comes and goes quickly, years passing into days into hours and minutes and seconds; really all it is, is a constant moment in time that is merely separated by the sun and the moon and seasons that come and go. We grow older, we make mistakes and we learn from them to become better people. To become who it is we want to be who the people around us want us to be. We change and transform.

And it always worried me that my life felt like it was a second chance, one that was precious and fragile and as delicate as spun glass. I decided to be what I imagined in another life I could not and I succeeded.

Happy.

Healthy.

Filled with the warmth of everlasting love.

"She's beautiful."

"It must be because she looks like her mum."

"Oh, but she looks like _you_ too her hair and her coloring is obviously you."

"Thank you Remus. And really Potter, that son of yours is quite…strange."

"My boy? He looks like me."

"Yes but his eyes are not like yours or his mother."

"So his eyes are like his aunts. Green and shimmering."

Happy and healthy and everything is just right. The child in my arms stares at me with glittering green eyes in wonder. The five year old girl who seems so familiar like, I have known her much longer then the little bit of time she has been here, it's the same for Potter's son. He is familiar too like I have known him before but, I can only sum that up to his father whom he shares an uncannily bizarre resemblance to.

Too bad he wasn't blond like his mother-Petunia was so disappointed about that but, she surmised, that she and Potter could have another child soon. She had mentioned to Lily that she hoped to have a girl.

Oh you must be astonished about that. I was quite surprised about that union I think we all were. After all, James had always loved Lily and then one day he decides to make that love known and sing under her window.

Of course I was there and gaily laughing with Mr. Evans and Petunia's boyfriend at them time…I think he was named Dursley.

Well, there Potter is singing under Lily's window with Sirius at his side and Remus who is just standing there in complete mortification when Petunia decides to kick them off the property and steps outside.

Potter's eyes landed on her feet first then, and I remember this quite clearly, up her legs and higher until they reached her dark blue eyes and that was it. The singing stopped and he began to pursue the other Evan's sister with a ferocity that was completely ludicrous. Lily was calmed by this of course and Petunia was horrified, understandably with the beliefs she had then and her large companion Vernon something…oh yes Dursley-left her soon after.

Now Petunia smiled and laughed and was very acceptable to all things she imagined were freakish. I was glad of it-I could only imagine if she still wore that sour look on her face that she would have been quite a horrendous sight probably hideous but the constant laughter made her pretty because she was so happy.

"Daddy can I peas go to Mr. Amos house. Diggy is coming back from camp an' Dray-co is gonna be there and Mummy said that I could marry him."

"Nu-uh Aunty Lily didn' say that 'sides Draco is a stupid head. You should marry Cedric anyway since he's always taking care of you like a baby."

"Shut up stupid. You should marry Ron then since he's always with you."

They run off, two small dark heads bobbing with every movement towards the opened door laughing merrily together. I look towards the opened window where the sight gifted to me was of grassy planes and the endless blue sky where a swarm of white birds flew to wherever their wings may take them where literally the sky was the limit. In the distance I see a lone blossom tree swaying in the calm winds and now where my child and nephew sat together. Harry starring intently on the blossoms decorating the branches of the tree prettily and Olivia's head resting in his lap appearing to be asleep.

Just like that dream from when I was a boy.

"Severus?" Lily asks from my side her green eyes staring intensely into my own contrasting so perfectly with her slightly tanned skin and flaming red hair cut to her shoulders in layered wisps.

"I'm alright, Lils." I assure her before, leaning forward and capturing her sweet lips with mine. Chaste and sweet like always.

And just like that the memory of that dream passes and I was returned to _my_ reality.

**_FIN_**

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